Could There Be Viable Competition for EMM as We Know it? Bitglass Says Yes

Bitglass, a cloud access security broker (CASB) vendor, is attempting to position themselves in the market as an alternative to EMM. They highlight their mobile data security, according to an article from brianmadden.com, and by pairing APIs and proxies they enable IT to have more control over the usage of cloud apps.

Their VP of products Rich Campagna, told brianmadden.com that the company’s goal is to ensure that corporate data is secure on mobile devices without MDM or any other type of mobile app management in order to avoid privacy issues that occur when using MDM to manage BYOD.

The vendor, founded just three years ago, uses whatever access and data protection controls that cloud apps expose to them via APIs, according to the article. Plus, they proxy traffic to and from enterprise cloud apps with a single sign on process.

And if you think this is a fit for your business, it means you’d have to do identity federation with SAML if you haven’t already.

Bitglass claims they can perform several mobility management tasks, including the following:

• Utilizes APIs to disable sharing features in apps to keep data safe. Or, uses the proxy and traffic inspection/manipulation to apply encryption and other policies to any downloaded data.
• Classifies sensitive data with a DLP engine.
• Detects devices that are not enrolled in MDM and applies different policies.
• Moves traffic from personal apps on unmanaged devices directly out to the internet.

In addition to these tasks, Bitglass’s concept does address some current unresolved issues including the fact that some users are still apprehensive about MDM for BYOD. Plus, just MAM alone won’t work for many cloud apps because, “the vendors aren’t going to hand over their mobile clients for customers to wrap, nor will they be excited about incorporating half a dozen different MAM SDKs,” according to brianmadden.com.

So, while many CASBs work with EMM vendors, Bitglass is taking a different approach. Check in with us for updates on the success of their plan.

Check out the Solutions Review 2016 EMM Buyers Guide for other options to handle you enterprise mobility management.